


Fading

by ILoveHeightGaps



Category: Original Work
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Car Accidents, Healing, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21883327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILoveHeightGaps/pseuds/ILoveHeightGaps
Summary: Writing this as a Birthday Gift!An one shot AU where Aaron gets amnesia
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Kudos: 1





	Fading

“Ah, I’m so glad we left early, we can do so much stuff!” Aaron said with glee as he waited for the crossing line to turn green. “Yep, I’m real excited to babysit you for a whole day.” Hans sarcastically replied, “Hmph. Whatever!” Aaron said as he stuck his tongue out and crossed his arms, much to Hans’ amusement. After a minute of waiting the light finally turned green, signaling to the pedestrians that it was now safe to cross. Looking both ways to make sure no cars were currently on the move, both boys had begun making their way to the other side of the street, halfway through, Hans asked “So, Birthday boy, what do we do fi-“, his thought was abruptly cut by the blaring of a loud horn, turning his head to face the source of the sound, Hans saw a car that was clearly not following the speed limit barreling towards them. The car was going way too fast, there was no time to think, but before Hans’ reflexes kicked in, Aaron frantically pushed him out of the way. 

There wasn’t even any time to react, Hans landed on his back which stung real bad, but he didn’t have time to worry about that as he noticed the aftermath of what just happened. The car had stopped, but Aaron wasn’t anywhere near the vicinity of the crash, realizing this meant that the impact from the car had probably sent the smaller boy far, Hans turned his head towards where Aaron would have landed. The sight wasn’t as gruesome or gory as usually depicted in media, but seeing the unconscious boy with blood pouring under him and having some of his limbs bent in ways they shouldn’t have made Hans sick to his stomach. Hans knew that sitting around in shock wouldn’t change anything, so he stood up and hurried to Aaron’s side. If seeing him from afar made Hans want to puke, getting a close view was certainly not better. Hans didn’t know what to do, he noticed that Aaron was profusely bleeding from what he assumes is a crack in his head, but what could he do about it? His blood ran cold as he noticed just to what extent the bodily harm was to Aaron, one of his arms was grotesquely twisted and a leg was bent to what looked like 90 degrees. Hans just stared at the smaller boy, he grabbed a hand and started apologizing, “I’m sorry” he muttered over and over again as tears started to form and eventually streak along his face. Before Hans realized, an ambulance had pulled up beside them and placed Aaron on a stretcher, he followed the paramedics in the wailing vehicle, to which they complied.

Inside the ambulance, Hans sat down and just stared as the paramedics attached wires of different shapes and sizes into the smaller boy. After cleaning his wounds and temporarily bandaging them, they had begun to defibrillate him. Hans couldn’t do anything but stare, why was this happening to them? All they wanted was to enjoy Aaron’s Birthday, but now it’s come to this. Before long, the ambulance had stopped and they reached their destination. While Aaron was led to the emergency room, Hans was escorted to wait outside. Hans waited, in the dead silence of the hospital there was nothing to keep him occupied but thoughts of what he could’ve done in that scenario. After endlessly blaming himself for hours, a masked man came out of the room, Hans bolted out of his chair and ran up to the man. “Is he going to be okay?” he practically shouted, “He should be fine, the accident wasn’t life threatening, I’ll tell you the details when he’s settled in a room.” Just hearing those words was an insane relief to Hans, the fact that Aaron was okay was enough to bring him to his knees, crying and thanking him for saving his life, “In the meantime, you should probably eat something, you look more dead than your friend over there.” The man jokingly said, trying to lighten up the mood, before Hans left, the man gave him the room number that Aaron would be kept in, and told him to just go there in an hour or so.

After eating in the hospital cafeteria, Hans basically bolted out to the room that Aaron was supposed to be kept in. As he approached the room, he noticed the same doctor from earlier, “Ah, we just finished putting him in, he should be sleeping right about now.” the man said, “Anyway, your friend is incredibly lucky, although his injuries looked pretty severe, most of them should heal in a few weeks.” Hans listened in silence, nodding along the way “However, he suffered a pretty bad blow to the head, the damage knocked out his sense of sight in his left eye and we still don’t know what effects this could have on his psyche, so we’ll be observing him for a few months.” Hans’ face went pale at the information, his brain not even registering things about “broken ribs” and “minor bruising”. Eventually the doctor gave the okay for him to enter the room, Hans was holding the steel handle of the door, hesitating to go in, he swallowed his fears and pushed the door open. He half expected Aaron to just be fine on the bed and yell “Hi, Hans!” in his usual shrill voice, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case, seeing as Aaron was sound asleep in the room. Taking a good look at him he saw that the top part of his head was covered in bandages, along with his eye, he had a cast on his arm and Hans couldn’t tell the state of his legs seeing as they were buried under the blankets.

Staring at the sleeping boy, Hans was silent, he wanted to wake him up and for Aaron to go and do an exaggerated reaction to annoy him, but he knew that probably wasn’t the best idea. Taking a seat beside the bed he just waited, occasionally checking his phone for the time. After a few more excruciating hours of waiting and Hans drifting into momentary sleep, he heard rustling in the bed and a silent grumble. Hans stood up and stood by the bed, he noticed Aaron’s eyes slowly opening, after they opened and closed repeatedly for a while, finally adjusting to the light, his eyes went from half-lidded to completely open. Hans saw as his eyes darted around the room quickly, his expression shifting from surprise to fear almost immediately. “Wh-where am I?!” he shouted at Hans, before he could reply, the smaller boy tried to prop himself up with his arms, the shot of pain from trying to do that made him scream, “What did you do to me?!” Aaron shouted again as he felt around his bandaged eye with his non-aching arm. Hans hugged the boy, “I’m so glad you’re okay!” Hans said, but to his surprise Aaron struggled and pushed him off, “Don’t touch me! Who the hell are you?!”

“Stay back!” Aaron cried out, frantically trying to find the call for help button on his bed. Hans wasn’t obtuse, he immediately backed off and went outside, with Aaron still shouting all the while. Outside of the room, Hans leaned on the door, sliding down until he touched the floor, he started crying. He thought this was probably the payment of not being quick enough to move out the way, or maybe all the bad things he’s ever done in his life all came back to bite him. Either way, Aaron seems to have completely forgotten about him, so much so that ascertains him as a threat. He cried more and more, thinking about why this is happening to them, right around this time they were supposed to just be happily eating dinner together, but now everything’s all wrong. “What are you doing out here?” Hans hears the familiar voice of that doctor, “He doesn’t remember me” he stammered out in between sobs and hiccups. After a few seconds of silence, “Go home, come back in a few days, I’ll explain to him what happened.” Hans felt incredibly relieved, suddenly everything seemed like they were going to get better, forcing himself to stop crying, he nodded and staggered out of the building.

Standing outside the cold metal door, Hans ran his hands through his hair and clutched the bouquet of flowers he was holding. When he got here, the doctor told him that they did their best explaining the circumstances to Aaron, to which Hans was incredibly thankful for. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and slowly made his way in. “Oh, it’s you.” Hans heard the moment he entered, Hans couldn’t exactly tell what that tone implied, adding to the fact that Aaron had an extremely hard to read poker face going on. “Uhm, yeah it’s me!” he said as he forced a chuckle out, “I’ll just put these here”, placing the flowers on the desk beside the bed. Aaron stared at the flowers for what seemed like forever, before turning his gaze to Hans and muttering a quiet “Thanks.” “Ah, I brought some of your stuff” Hans exclaimed as he dug around his bag, handing Aaron his phone “It got cracked but it works fine” he reassured as he brought out another thing “Here’s your wallet, don’t worry I didn’t take anything!” Aaron reluctantly grabbed his personal belongings. Hans noticed Aaron fiddling around his phone for a bit, showing visible frustration after a while, “Uh, is something wrong?” “Yeah, I keep typing my password but it keeps saying it’s wrong”. Hans didn’t really know how to tell him that the passwords to their phones were each other’s names, so he just settled on “Give it to me, I know your password”, realizing he sounded pretty demanding, it came to no surprise that Aaron’s face showed visible concern “What the hell, that’s creepy.”, contrary to what he said, Aaron did hand over his phone. Typing his own name in made him feel a bit weird seeing as it was on someone else’s phone, “I’ll remove the password for you”, going to the settings and removing the password, Hans realized he didn’t want to give back Aaron’s phone yet. “Hold on give me a second” Hans said as he snooped around Aaron’s phone, deleting any trace of himself on Aaron’s phone. “What’s taking you so long?” Aaron asked as Hans was midway through deleting their text conversations, “Alright, I’m done”, handing Aaron his phone back. While Aaron was excitedly playing with his phone, Hans took Aaron’s wallet and took out the photos of them together, “That better not have been money you took” Aaron said without taking his eyes off his phone, “Don’t worry it was nothing important”. After a while a nurse asked Hans to leave since visiting hours were over, “See you tomorrow!” Hans cheerfully exclaimed, which earned him a simple “Alright”.  
As Hans made his way out, he thought if what he did was the right thing, he knew that the extent of Aaron’s memory loss was unknown and nobody knew if his memories were to ever come back. He was told to give Aaron sentimental things to see if it would help, but when Hans thought about it, he realized that what if Aaron finds out they were dating, and even if he doesn’t feel that way, he forces himself to act like what he was before. Hans didn’t want that, he didn’t want to make Aaron act like someone he was not, although at this point, there’s a line drawn as to who exactly Aaron is now. He feels bad for basically deleting his existence from Aaron’s stuff, but he knows that this is for the better. Hans understood that he did the right thing, taking a huge burden off of Aaron, forcing him into being his boyfriend again would be too cruel. He knew he did the right thing, but it still chokes him up, he has copies of the photos and chats he deleted, but it still felt horrible, it was basically what someone would do after a break up, shaking those thoughts away, Hans made a promise to himself, “I’ll make Aaron fall in love with me as many times as I have to.”

“Hello! I’m back!” Hans exclaimed, “Hello…?” was the only reply he got, along with a clearly weirded out face, “It’s like 8AM don’t you have school?” Aaron eventually said, “It’s Christmas break silly!”. “Uh, okay then you go be weird on your own.” Aaron scoffed, “Wait was I being weird?”, “Yeah, and creepy.” Hans was shocked at how direct that answer was, he thought about how differently that exchange would have went had Aaron not lost his memories, his thoughts were interrupted with Aaron saying “Well if you understand then it’s fine.” Hans then realized that even if he lost his memories, Aaron will still forever be the same easily embarrassed and bashful dork he is. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.” the comment went straight into Hans’ ego, which translated into his triumphant smile, “Wait no let me finish” Aaron immediately said, “Some people have been messaging me and I don’t really know how to respond.” Aaron then handed his phone to Hans. Hans checked the messages and unsurprisingly a bunch of Aaron’s batch mates and friends were asking how he was doing. Taking a mental note of the people who messaged Aaron, Hans reassured the smaller boy by saying he’ll talk to them himself to explain what’s happening. “Thanks, seriously.” the way Aaron delivered it seem sarcastic, but Hans knew that he was genuinely thankful for that. “Anything for you.” Hans flashed a grin at Aaron who’s face immediately went red. After talking about whatever came to mind for the next few hours, Hans was overjoyed to see that Aaron seemed to be coping well. “I brought some more of your stuff by the way” Hans said as he brought out Aaron’s school ID and one of his caps. “Why do you have so much of my stuff?” Aaron genuinely was curious as to why, “It’s uh, stuff that you had with you when…” Hans suddenly went quiet, “When what?” “When the accident happened.” In an instant the mood of the room dropped immensely, Aaron just sat in silence for a few minutes. Hans gave him his space, he knew that bringing up this topic would have this kind of effect, but it’s not like he could avoid it forever. “Well, no use brooding over it now!” Aaron suddenly piped up, he was smiling, but it was obvious that he was hiding some deep-rooted emotions with it. Choosing not to press him about it, Hams popped open Aaron’s ID Case, “Look, it’s a picture of you and your friends!” Hans had already removed the photos of them together prior to this moment, so he was pretty relieved. After looking at the photos of Aaron and his friends, the visiting hours were coming to end once again, “Hey.” Hans heard as he was fixing his stuff, “Come back tomorrow okay?” Aaron said in a manner akin to pleading “I’ll come back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that!” Aaron’s face grew into a smile after hearing that, “Alright, bye!” “Bye!”

“I’m gonna head out now!” Hans shouted as he was putting on his shoes, before he could make his way out, his parents blocked the door, “It’s Christmas Eve! You can’t go out, you’re spending the day here.” they declared. “Wait no I have to go I promi-“ “No excuses!” they cut him off, “Whether you like it or not, you’re spending the day here.”   
“I wonder when he’ll get here” Aaron said to the wall, before going back to playing with his phone, it’s been the only thing between him and dying from boredom in the hospital after all. He tried to listen to some of the music downloaded on his phone but gave up after realizing he has no idea what these people were saying. Putting his phone down, he looked at the wall clock, tic toc he imitated the sound, “It’s almost night time”, Aaron resigned himself into thinking that Hans probably won’t be going today. “Did I do something wrong?” he thought to himself, he hated being alone, probably the Aaron from before hated it too, because when you’re alone, your brain becomes pretty ruthless with it’s thoughts. He stared off into the sky, noticing the breathtaking amount of stars accentuating the full moon, did the Aaron from before like stars? He wondered, sure he saw some photos of constellations in his gallery and he seemed to be quite a firm believer in zodiacs and stuff. The more Aaron thought about it, the closer he came to the realization that he has no idea who he is, not in a stereotypical “what’s my name” kind of way, but more of “Who am I?” Realizing he’d probably spend the whole day alone, he laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling, he saw his phone on the corner of his eye, and he thought hard about what the old Aaron seemed to have like. Korean singers, Japanese cartoons, video games, dancing and other mundane things, well mundane to him, Aaron probably loved those things a whole lot. Which made Aaron think, if he can’t learn to like the things Aaron liked, then is he even Aaron anymore? Thoughts of his existence and who he is filled his mind as he cried himself to sleep.

Aaron woke up the next day, “It’s Christmas day”, Aaron must have loved this day, seeing as he had multiple alarms and reminders blaring to celebrate said day. Scrolling through Aaron’s social media it seemed the boy fancied himself as the type of person to be friends with everyone, Aaron could barely handle talking to nurses, so the thought of socializing with as many people as Aaron does made him shiver. Scrolling through more and more stuff he saw photos and videos of Aaron dancing, wearing clothes of characters he doesn’t recognize, and even stuff like taking care of his cat. The more he learned about Aaron the more he realized just how far he is from that person. When Aaron comes to the realization that when he eventually gets out of the hospital, nobody’s going to know who he is anymore, they’ll know Aaron but they won’t know Aaron, the mere idea that he’ll ruin everything Aaron worked to achieve makes him incredibly sad. What pushed Aaron completely off the edge was when he saw a video of Aaron dancing with Hans, they didn’t look like they were serious, just doing random freestyle movements to some Korean music and laughing all the while. When he thinks about the fact that Hans probably only visited him in hopes of him getting his memories back, but seeing as he’s making no progress towards that, Hans would never visit him again. Aaron choked up at the thought, he didn’t know why, but something was telling him that he didn’t want to lose Hans, he thought that it was Aaron’s emotions but he realized that the person that didn’t want to lose Hans was him, Aaron. The thought of Hans never coming back made Aaron cry, which contrasted with the video he was watching that was simply brimming with joy. All of a sudden, his door burst open, he didn’t even have time to compose himself, Hans had appeared, gasping and out of breath.  
“I ran here, the moment my parents fell asleep” Hans said in between pants, “Wait are you crying?” Aaron didn’t know what to do, he covered his eye with his phone and said “N-no I’m not” while sniffling. Hans rushed to his side, carefully moving Aaron’s hand, wiping the tears away. “Don’t cry, I’m here now.” Hans tried his best to calm the boy down, he noticed the video playing on Aaron’s phone, “Were you crying because of that?” to which Aaron simply nodded. “I-it’s because y-you probably o-only go here because you want to s-see Aaron but instead you get Aaron.” Hans was confused, he had no idea what Aaron was saying “Uh, could you explain?” Aaron stayed silent for a few seconds. “It’s because I thought that you go here to see Aaron but instead you see me, I feel like you want to see the Aaron from before the accident, but instead you get this Aaron that’s nothing like Aaron.” Hans still didn’t completely understand what with the weird phrasing and all, but he thinks he got the general idea, “Look, Aaron, you’ll always be you, you might not be Aaron but that doesn’t take anything away from you, you might not like the same things you used to, but in the end of the day, you’re still the same lovable little dork, and the love of my life.” Aaron was surprised with how forward that was “Y-you really think so?” he pleaded, “I don’t think so, I know so” Hans said with conviction. “That last part, the one with you being the love of my life, I mean it.” Hans adamantly told the smaller boy, “But it’s not me you fell in love with, is it?” Hans knew what he was trying to say, “Aaron, don’t misunderstand, yes it was Aaron that I loved, but to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s Aaron or Aaron or whoever, the one I love, is you.”  
“Really?” Aaron sniffled “Really.” Hans said as he hugged the quivering boy. Aaron didn’t hug back, and averted his eye, “I-if we really were a th-thing before…” Hans listened intently, “Then how come there’s like nothing that says that.” Aaron signaled to his phone. Hans didn’t know what the best thing to say was, so he just settled on telling the truth, “I deleted everything.” Aaron’s face quickly turned into one of concern, shifting his gaze downwards he muttered “But why?” Hans didn’t like seeing Aaron sad, so he chose to explain quickly, detailing how he didn’t want Aaron to feel obliged to be his boyfriend just because Aaron was. After internalizing the information, Aaron sat in silence for a while, “Can I see them? The stuff you deleted, I mean.” Hans quickly brought out his own phone and opened the gallery, “Sorry, I didn’t bring any physical photos today.” Aaron didn’t respond, just taking Hans’ phone and taking in what he’s seeing. There were so many photos of them, cute couple photos, dumb selfies, conversation screenshots, there was so much to see. Stopping at the most recent photo, it was of them standing beside each other, one of Hans’ arms were off screen, probably holding the camera while the other was around Aaron, who was holding up a peace sign and the happiest looking smile you could ever imagine, seeing that the photo was dated December 20 filled Aaron with dread. Sure Hans said that he’ll always love him no matter how he was, but the truth of the matter is that it was this Aaron that Hans loved so much. “Is something wrong?” Hans asked, “Are you sure?” Hans was confused at the sudden question “About what?” Aaron glanced around, avoiding eye contact, “About me, I’ll never be like him.” Aaron pointed at the photo on Hans phone. Hans would have to admit, Aaron wasn’t exactly wrong, but he could just imagine how mad Aaron would be. “Look, it’s true that you’ll probably never be the same way” Aaron was incredibly disheartened hearing this, “But deep down, even if you don’t like the things he did, you’ll always be the same.” Aaron still didn’t look convinced, “It wasn’t those things that made me love him, sure they were charming, but what I fell in love with was who he was, who you still are.” Hans felt a bit sad, reminiscing about past memories, “To me, Aaron was more than the things he liked, he was kind, loving, adorable, things you still are and will forever be!” Aaron registered what Hans was saying, as tears formed in his eye once more, “Hans, I don’t care if it’s actually not me saying it, but from the bottom of my heart, I want you to know that Aaron really did love you.” Hans choked up a bit after hearing that, “He loved you and I want you to know that.” Hans didn’t really know where Aaron was going with this, “So if you’re okay with me” Aaron muttered, “Hans, I love you.”

“I’m finally getting out of this hospital!” Aaron proclaimed as he stretched his arm, leaning into his wheelchair, “Yep, it’s because you’ve been trying so hard!” the taller boy said. As Hans was pushing Aaron into the elevator, he asked “Hey, are you going to be okay?” Aaron got a bit sad at the question but quickly cheered up “Don’t worry, I’ve been practicing conversations in my head.” “Is that so? I’m glad.” As the elevator began descending “What I’m more worried about is living life normally.” Aaron said as he felt around his injuries, “Do you think people are still going to like me?” Hans quickly lowered his body so that his face would be in front of Aaron’s “Of course they would! Besides, you’ve been working so hard not just on physical therapy, you’ve also been studying to make up for the stuff you’ve missed, I’m sure you’ll be fine!” Aaron smiled at the encouragement “Well I only got this far because I’ve had someone amazing support me every step of the way.” Hans blushed at the sudden complement, much to Aaron’s amusement. As the elevator finally stopped and they made their way out the main door, Aaron was amazed at how being outside felt, the way the wind whooshed onto him, the sun’s rays connecting with his pale skin, everything just felt so new and amazing, Hans realized how much Aaron was enjoying this, so he took a while to admire the atmosphere with Aaron. “Well, are you ready to go?” Aaron just smiled, “With you, I’ll go anywhere!” they both laughed as Hans continued pushing the wheelchair, “Happy Birthday, Aaron” Hans said under his breath, looking at Aaron, then onto the sky, “Goodbye.” he said, even quieter this time “Hmm? Did you say something?” Aaron turned to ask, “Yeah” Hans replied, “I love you.” Aaron thought about his answer for a while before settling with an, “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write more but I had to rush ;-;


End file.
